Cardinal Wants to Reach the Sun

A Cardinal sets a goal: to reach Mr. Sun. He wants to ask him to stop emitting so much heat. He thinks it's too hot. He packs up his baggage with bottled water and seeds, and he puts on his sunglasses. He begins his journey eastward.

The Cardinal flies energetically in the beginning, being as fast as a rocket. He watches the ball on fire burning vigorously. He then sees a tree waving its hand to welcome the Cardinal to rest, so he went over. The instance he sat on the branch, he hears someone call "Hey!". He turns around and sees a Raven sitting on another branch, looking at him with disgust and hatred.

“This is my tree, so get off my tree!” screamed the angry Raven.

“Please let me rest on this tree,” pleaded the exhausted Cardinal.

“No!” screamed the angry Raven, and the Raven raises his intimidating large bill. The Cardinal gets scared, and flies away hurriedly.

He tries to find another tree to rest, but every time he finds one, there is always at least one bird already occupying the tree. He asks them if they could let him rest for a while, but go away is the response he gets every time. He is getting tired gradually because he can find no tree to rest on. He feels that the bag on his back is as heavy as a boulder. He raises his head, and looks at the sun steadily and thought, Don’t give up that easily; it would surely be a challenge to reach Mr. Sun; I need to have stamina. He keeps on going with the sun shining on his bright red feathers.

The Cardinal hears a distant loud noise coming from far away. As the noise gets louder, he sees an airplane soaring towards him like a rocket. The airplane is like a giant eagle whose wings do not move. The Cardinal thought that the airplane is a monster, so he becomes frightened. He flies away as fast as he can, using almost all the energy he has left in his body. By the time the airplane is out of sight, he is extremely exhausted. He is so exhausted that moving a muscle would be painful for him. The Cardinal did not see the Eagle behind him staring hungrily at him. The Eagle dives, with wings spread and talons stretched out. The Cardinal dodges as if a baseball was going to drill him, and the Eagle only missed him by several inches. The Cardinal tries to hide while the Eagle was braking from the dive, but the eagle recovers fast enough and focuses his piercing eyes on the Cardinal again. The energetic Eagle is flying much faster than the exhausted Cardinal, and the Eagle is closing upon the Cardinal. The distance between them becomes closer and closer, and then only several inches. The beak of the Eagle snatches the Cardinal’s right leg, and then the Cardinal lets out a terrible scream. The Cardinal is falling off the sky and lands in a forest, motionless.

After a while, a boy is taking a walk in the forest. He likes to explore the wonders of the forest. While he is walking, he notices a mass of red among the green grass on the forest floor, about 300 feet away. He is initially afraid of what it might be, daring not to go see what it is because he fears it might be dangerous. But his curiosity wins over his fear, and he tiptoes towards the red thing, being extremely cautious. Then he sees that it is no danger, but a Cardinal in a mass of red blood. Blood has covered the Cardinal's black legs in red. The poor Cardinal is unconscious, and the boy quickly runs over to the Cardinal after confirming what he has seen. He picks up the Cardinal with both hands carefully, and starts running feverishly towards his house

The Cardinal wakes up from unconsciousness after what appears to be an hour, but actually almost a day. The Cardinal still could not forget the look of hunger in the Eagle's eyes and the saliva dripping from his beak, and he thinks he is fortunate to have escaped the fierce eagle. He looks around to see where he is now, and finds out that he is at a house, lying on a mini-sized quilt on the windowsill. The elegant features of the house create an amiable atmosphere and make the Cardinal feel calmer. He looks at his wounded leg and finds it wrapped with cloth. He tries to move, but his wounded leg is preventing him from doing that. Then the boy sees that the Cardinal is conscious, he runs over to the Cardinal and strokes the Cardinal gently on the back.

"Rest, you're going to be alright here. I asked Dad and Mom if you can be my pet and they said yes. We are going to be good friends, OK?"

The Cardinal cannot understand the boy's words, but the boy sounds happy and the boy is really kind. The Cardinal really appreciates the fact that the boy treated his wound.

Two weeks later, the Cardinal's wound still has not fully recovered due to the severeness of the wound. However, he figures out that he will be staying at the boy's house forever and be his pet. He is extremely cheerful about being able to be the pet of such a kind person. He thinks of the journey that gave him the wound and realized that he has not completed the journey to Mr. Sun. But he thinks that sometimes there are other ways to deal with a problem and perhaps Mr. Sun is too hot to get close.

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